Near Northeast

Near Northeast is a neighborhood in northeast Washington DC. Most of the land was sold to Notley Young during the 1790s and called Youngsborough, but Young later gave the land to the federal government for it to be turned into lots and half of these lots being given back to Young. Most of the land was used as farmland to cultivate fruits and vegetables for the fresh market in more developed parts of the city, and it remained undeveloped and sparsely populated until the end of the 19th century. In the first half of the 20th century, it was a major center of the African-American population, and immigrant populations from Ireland, Germany, Greece, Italy, and Eastern Europe also settled in the area. The construction of Washington Union Station in 1907 destroyed the Irish "Swampoodle" neighborhood, and the area soon underwent development. The race riots that followed Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 1968 assassination led to many of the white residents moving to Marlyand and Virginia, and it became a poor black neighborhood.